A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, in which a person makes a promise to do an act of goodwill or self-improvement starting New Year’s Day.

We are all too familiar with some of these resolutions, for example:

Lose a few pounds

Start exercising

Improve mental well-being

Improve financial status

Self-improvement and personal development

Make new friends

Find that special person

Read more

Travel more, be more adventurous

Reduce stress

Make more money, save more money, spend less

Find a better job

Be more spiritual, find a connection with your creator

Give more, volunteer and be more philanthropic

Call your parents more often

Grow closer to your spouse and kids

Buy a pet

Get more clients and customers

This list can be as long as you have goals.

With deep religious origins, ancient civilizations were well versed in the practice.

Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year. The Romans began each year by making promises to the God Janus. In the Medieval era, knights took the “peacock vow” at the end of the Christmas season each year in order to re-affirm their commitment to chivalry.

But don’t worry …they also broke promises and quit on their resolutions, just like we do!

Statistically, by January 15th ninety-five percent of people break, forget, or quit on their New Year’s resolutions.

But why?

We felt so committed to making changes. What made us walk away with such indifference just a few days later?

We’ve all done this, there’s no point in hiding or justifying it. There’s also no point in re-living it.

But, we need to first figure out why we failed in the past so that we know how not to blow it this New Year!

Here’s why we’ve failed in the past:

We weren’t asking the right questions!

Most of us, when faced with a challenge or goal, begin by asking a question …and it’s a good question, but it’s also a premature one!

What do I need to do? …to lose weight, to gain weight, to make more money, to be more social, to meet more people, to have the life I want.

We focus on the “What”. This is the wrong question, at absolutely the worse time!

In the quest for success at anything, you must first think strategically!

Here are the 3 keyquestions you need to be asking when looking to make changes:

The “Who”

The “Why”

The “What”

In this order!

Who do I need to become?In your mind, what do you aspire to be? … and start modeling that behavior even if you haven’t achieved the results you want. Find a role model, a mentor, or a powerful idea and start behaving congruently with that vision and in line with your newly created identity.

Why do I want to achieve this goal? If you don’t have a strong reason to change or achieve “that” something in your life, you will quit at the first sign of push back, and believe me, life will push back! So the stronger your reasons to stay in the fight, the better your chances to not only survive but thrive in adversity. Find a powerful reason, a meaningful “Why” …and look at it every day!

What do I need to do? Now it’s time to ask this question because your head’s in the right place! The first 2 questions get you in the right mindset. This question is about how to take massive action, set the parameters, figure out the tactics and the mechanics. What rituals and systems need to be in place for you to succeed? This question is about first organizing and then putting in the work and action that fuels your desire.

This 3 step formula has helped me achieve things in my life I never thought I could do. Now I’m passing it on.

I wish you Happy Holidays and a meaningful, permanent and successful New Year’s resolution!

“If you’re pitching your product to corporates, should you highlight their negatives, such as bad reviews on TripAdvisor for a travel company, or focus on positive solutions in order to explain true product benefits?”

This was an actual question on Quora.com I bumped into this morning. I thought it was a terrific question by the way, one that will come up time and time again if you make presentations to sell your products or services.

Here’s my answer –

[ I would approach it from a general viewpoint, yet addressing the issue:

“…one of the many special benefits this “widget” provides is reducing the customer service calls turn-around-time. A huge and usually justified source of customer discontent in over 90% of companies in your industry. This is currently costing your peers over 1 Billion in repeat business. Whomever can fix this issue the fastest, will most likely emerge as the market leader”

I usually stay away from indirectly blaming or pointing sticky fingers to the very people I’m trying to sell my services to.

Beside, many times the real issue is not what they think it is anyway. Usually the issue they tell you they are having is a symptom of the real problem. So if they bring up their pseudo-problems to the table, sure address them in the same way, but be empathetic in your approach and believable in your solution regardless.

When you focus on commonalities, benefits and solutions you can bring your point across in a more constructive and in a “let’s-get-you-in-front-of-the-pack” kind of way. ]

What would your approach be?

Would you focus on positive solutions to make a sale or would you point out defects and weak links to sell such solutions?

Lately when I’ve talk to entrepreneurs not familiar with Kennedy Style Marketing, whether they are a client of mine or not already, I point them in this direction. It’s amazing how easier it is to talk marketing strategy with someone who has this kind of home-field advantage.

That’s why I want to share one of my favorite articles from him with you …here it goes!

What You Accept, You Get

Here’s a secret I’ve discovered about millionaire and multi-millionaire entrepreneurs: they want what they do and their companies do to be right. Not 80% right. Not 90% right. Right, period. They are, therefore, very much disliked by a lot of people, and if they are “big” enough, by the media. Jobs. Bezos. Trump. Working for them, many ex-employees say, was hell. But maybe it was being incompetent in their employ that was hell.

Winning isn’t just a statistic on a spreadsheet or a bank account balance. It is the customer, Mrs. Matilda Smith, in Rockford, Illinois, getting what she asked for on her pizza or the right product in the delivered package or a human answering her call in fewer than four rings. Customer appreciation is not a once a year sale or an automated thank you e-mail. It is an authentic attitude, top-down, permeated throughout an organization, actually occurring – and measured, policed and enforced – every day. I don’t care how big your company, if you don’t actually care about the people, the individuals, giving you money, they will drift off in search of a place where they feel valued and appreciated.

Another secret about rich entrepreneurs: they don’t just seek success. They HATE failure.

They often react to it violently. Martha Stewart was known to drop into a K-Mart store, find her branded goods sloppily stocked and throw the entire inventory from shelves onto the floor. Eisner instantly fired a group of Disney Park employees caught not smiling. Walt had a fit over one’s lousy delivery of The Jungle Cruise script. I saw Trump tear an empty towel dispenser from a restroom wall in a Trump hotel and throw it 20 yards down a hall.

These people are said to terrorize their employees, their associates, their vendors. But how calmly should you accept failure? Should you “stay calm and carry on”? Only if you want more of the failure you calmly accept. If your blood doesn’t boil and offenders see fire shoot from your eyeballs, your lesser response will be taken as permission. If there is failure and new training, new controls, new supervision is not installed as remedy, the “let’s TRY and do better” will be taken as permission.

There are places where incompetence as failure has dire and instant consequences. The jailer who forgets to lock the inmate’s cell or misses the razor blade in the body search may wind up quickly dead. It’s a fine object lesson for other jailers. The cruise ship captain who is busy texting and gets into too-shallow water and capsizes and sinks the whole thing, and injures and drowns passengers, goes to prison. As it should be.

Creating dire and instant consequences for incompetence and failure is a good thing in any and every business. I’ve told of Chuck Sekeres’ “3 strikes and you’re out” for his in-bound telemarketers: three calls in a row without a set appointment, you’re out. Next batter up. No quarterly performance evaluations. Don’t even wait to be told. After 3, get up and slink out. Minute by minute. Drop three passes in a game, butt on bench. If possible, traded. Fail at managing the V.A., the IRS and Benghazi, shouldn’t three strikes be enough? They tried to impeach Clinton over one intern. I used the word RUTHLESS in my book title “No BS Management of People and Profits” because, damn it, we desperately need a lot more ruthlessness in a lot more places. In homes, in neighborhoods, in small businesses, in big companies, in government. You can start with you.

So what did you think? They don’t call him “The Professor of Harsh Reality” for nothing right?

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up. His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of GKIC Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world.

Remember guys I am promoting this program, if you do decide to follow through with it I will get paid a small commission. This is the way I look at it:

Sales Techniques that Work in Real Life!

So you are probably thinking, you need to be persistent, pesty, pushy and get across salesy in order to come away with what the title of this post implies.

But it’s actually the opposite… By the way an important distinction I’d like to make in relation to this topic before we get into it is the following:

In “Sales Techniques That Work!“, Not getting a response and getting a “No” or “Not Interested” are two totally different reactions from prospects or existing clients.

The thing is that many times we interpret “not getting a response” as a “No”. Don’t do that!

There could me many reasons why someone is not responsive to you for example, they lack time, they might be assuming you are way above their budget, they haven’t seen your ad or email invite, they are too busy to engage with you at the moment or maybe you haven’t communicated your offer effectively, who knows!

Whatever the reason, don’t assume their answer is no, until you hear it. But even if No is their answer, well that’s what this post is all about …Here we go!

Here’s Step #1

Understand these sales techniques first and save yourself a lot of anguish and self-doubt:

Most everyone says NO the first time, and if they don’t say it they think it!

No one likes to be sold, but almost everyone loves to buy stuff they feel they need!

[Warning] – We are assuming that what you have to offer ACTUALLY solves a problem and helps people Ok!

Start by genuinely having a conversation about the things giving them the most headaches and challenges, then IF and only IF you can help then position your solution naturally and without pressure.

Don’t try to sell an aspirin to someone who doesn’t have a headache -if you can’t help then offer support and point them to someone in your network of friends and associates who can.

Remember these easy sales techniques when you hear “No” or “Not Interested”

Don’t take No(s) personally

Find out what they are really saying NO to!

Reposition your offer, idea or hook in mid-flight if you have to

Don’t go for the sale, go for the 15 min presentation!

Scale the process and get micro-commitments

Here’s Step #2

Once is never enough… you need to show genuine and unwavering consistency!

You MUST have a strategic and consistent value-based follow up…

What does that mean? Most sales professionals and service oriented entrepreneurs do not have a follow up strategy or specific sales techniques. Your follow up needs to have 3 essential elements:

Follow up with genuine concern – “last time we spoke you were wrestling with the issue of [ blank], is that still the case?”

Have a value-based offer/solution – “…thinking about our conversation recently it occurred to me this might help, Are you familiar with [blank]?

Have a calendar mindset – “…on that topic I’m hosting a webinar on this day [blank]” or “I have some ideas that I think might help you, do you have 10 minutes for a Skype chat tomorrow at 1 pm?

You can word these anyway it fits you but follow up the essence of each point and watch the results!

And finally Step #3

In Sales Success this one is a total mind shift in terms of approach, it might take you a while, but once you get it you are at a whole different level than your peers!

You don’t make a sale to get a client, you get a client in order to make a sale!

Most sales professionals actually think and want to make money on their first encounter. This is a big mistake!

When it comes to building serious loyalty and goodwill and in essence build a strong customer or client base you need to give away your best stuff at cost!

Listen to me! –YOUR BEST AT COST!

This achieves success in 3 critical areas of your business:

Authority – you establish yourself as an expert

Build trust – an essential virtue in long term business relationships

Grow you list – a critical component of the longevity and strength of your business is how large your list is and your relationship with it!

Those that are willing to spend the most on acquiring and building their list will come out on top every time! Hope you can put this to work right away! It’s simple, make a list of pending follow ups, new contacts and sleepy referrals and craft your approach following these 3 easy steps!

I mean …even radio stations have a 5 O’clock horn letting you know you are now “FREE”. You have 2 days to roam the country side, let some steam off and run wild until Monday when you HAVE to come back to your self made prison for the next five days, for what they decide to pay you btw, and this you will do 72% of your God-given time for the rest of your life.

Are you kidding me!!?

This may not be you, but if you desperately look forward to Fridays 5 pm, see Wednesday as “hump day” and Monday is a day from Hell …then my contention is you are not very happy with your chosen business or profession, you may not admit this in public, but you are not a very happy guy or gal.

If you see the weekend as a temporary escape route, a time to unwind, unplug and have a chance to be “YOU” at least for 28% of your time, then I think you may need to re-evaluate your life and ask yourself a simple question: Why Am I Doing This?

The main reason you are not happy is not because you have to do it all over again on Monday, but because you are not in control of your life, someone or something else is …and WE … YOU were not meant to live that way!

If you are aware of this… Good for you! The question then is: “What are you going to do about it …How can you be “YOU” 7 days a week?”

So get busy working on a Plan where you control your time, because if you control your time …you control your life.

If you got upset at reading this, well you probably didn’t read this far … But GOOD if you did get upset! You are supposed to, because there is no hope or cure for those that feel nothing.

My advice is, take some time to think about your time in a different way, try owning it for a change, understand how precious it is, because it’s limited. So how do you want to spend it?

How do you want to spend it doing the things you want, deserve and were meant to be doing!

If you knew absolutely nothing about the Outdoors and you decided to go camping in the wilderness for three straight weeks, what would you need to take with you?

Most people start a venture like that thinking about the tools, I need to have all the tools and the latest camping shiny objects because let’s face it, tools are important when outdoors, without tools you can die! But let’s talk about the sequence, the mindset and process you should have to prepare for such event… right?

Not too long ago I took a 15 day course (Paid!) on how to set up a web based business from A-Z. I did it in 5 days. Now I know how to do that already, that’s my business, but if that’s the case why did I take that course? I knew 90% of that stuff already! To some people that would be a total waste of time and money right?

Not to me… and here’s why:

1. You Must Always Be Working On Your Craft… Going back to basics and working on them is what professionals do. Watch Tiger Woods hit the range and swing at 1000 balls after every round. Watch Michael Phelps repeat endless sets of boring and trivial drills specific to each stroke day after day. Watch Rafa Nadal work out. How many times does he practice the same swing, and tell me if you are willing to do that in your profession to stay on top of your game.

The truth is, most people don’t and then they wonder why they can’t elevate their game, work with people they want to work with, at the hours the prefer to and make the money they want!

In this particular case I was about to embark on a totally new different Industry and I needed to know how what I knew applied to to it… so a refresher it’s always a great way to get in the right mindset. But also a refresher course taught by someone with better results than me.

Always work on the basics of your craft as taught by mentors and leaders in your profession in order to elevate your game!

2. ( Most Important!) Doing #1 Keeps Me Centered On The WHY, Not The HOW…Here’s a big secret on why most people completely screw up worthwhile goals and ventures even before they start!

Ready? …Most people believe they have to know the HOW before they make a decision and take action, when in reality what they need is a real strong purpose behind it, the WHY. So because they don’t have a clear Why they take forever, if at all, to take ACTION while hiding and wasting precious time on figuring out the HOW.

99% of reasons why people don’t get off their butt to do what they’ve always wanted and as a result live the live they’ve always dreamed of is because they think they have to know HOW to do it before making a die-hard DECISION to actually do it! – If you make a decision it’s done! You’ve decided and not anything or anyone it’s going to dissuade you. Now you breakdown the HOW- and get to work, but it’s going to get DONE! The decision has been made.

This is the biggest mental trap to prosperity and success our species suffers from, it’s endemic and hereditary, and it’s the #1 cause of broken dreams World Wide!

See whatever HOW you choose, it’s going to be a tough ride no matter what …the HOW won’t help you to stay the course. Only the WHY can help you do that.

So before starting your home-based business in search of financial independence, deciding to do a channel swim, lose 50 pounds, or go into early retirement, figure out the WHY and have a clear vision why you are doing it …so that when things get tough, and they will, you are not the first one to QUIT while blaming everything and everyone but yourself.

Quitters forget their WHY and blame the HOW …Winners never forget WHY they are doing what their doing, and they figure out the HOW as they charge ahead.

If you have a strong PURPOSE and a powerful WHY you can stay in the fight as long as a takes, nothing and I mean nothing that gets thrown at you will be powerful enough to derail you and change your destiny, which is to be anything you want and deserve to BE!

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